Consider a Career in the Supply Chain

If you’re reading this article, you might be a college student trying to find your future career. You might be a high school student, trying to pick a school or a major that will adequately fit your future plans. Maybe you’re in trade school or maybe you’re just looking for a new career.

Regardless of what stage of life you’re in at the moment, if you’re looking for a career path, maybe it’s time to look at supply chain management.

To put it bluntly, a career in supply chain management is offering you a fantastic opportunity for advancement within the industry and a real opportunity to build a solid, results-based career.

Almost every large business, from Amazon to WalMart to Target to Starbucks to Apple to Colgate and so on, offer serious business and career opportunities within the field of supply chain management. The demand for positions within the field is growing and expanding virtually every day. With new technologies emerging and changing the way we do business in the supply chain, employers are always looking for fresh minds, new ideas and dedicated professionals who want to not only make a living, but start a career and make a difference.

If you’re curious about what exactly the job entails, I advise that you reexamine the name, as it’s a fairly literal and straightforward title. A career in SCM is a career of, essentially, managing and overseeing the supply chain of a business. Consider the fact that in the production and manufacture of everything from vehicles to electronics there are countless components that make up the whole. In a car, frame may be built in one country while the electronics are from another. The engine, floor mats, interior fabrics and virtually every other piece that make up the car puzzle are often shipped from different parts of the world. If you’re in charge of the supply chain, you’re in charge of controlling the flow of these parts, ensuring they all come together at the lowest cost and most environmentally friendly manner possible.

The above is just one facet of what makes up working in the supply chain. Different industries have different responsibilities, but the general rule applies that you will, as a supply chain manager, be in charge of, well, managing the supply chain.

More and more colleges are now beginning to offer degrees in supply chain management. The highly rated programs come with what essentially amounts to guaranteed positions after completion of the program. With such a growing number of available positions around the world, supply chain management presents an exciting–and rapidly expanding–career opportunity.

Working in supply chain management is working in a data and analytics-driven industry. If you don’t like crunching numbers or working with Excel, it might not be the right career for you. But it is a field that is certainly growing and expanding with time. And as we as a people begin to prioritize sustainability and new technologies, new responsibilities continue to be thrust upon us. Supply chain management isn’t just a field that’s growing, it’s a field that’s evolving. And you should want to be a part of it.